Table of Contents
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http://LCTG.toku.us.
Speaker schedule management link (John Rudy)
Lexington Computer and Technology Group
The Lexington Computer and Technology Group (LCTG) is a volunteer, no-cost, not-for-profit, just-for-fun-and-education organization that meets most Wednesdays from 10am to 11:30am to discuss a wide variety of technical issues. (Sometimes we meet at a different time, see this in the schedule below.) Meetings are open to anyone interested in the topic(s). The group has an email list (see how to join below) for announcements and discussions.
For further information, contact group lead John Rudy and the other group coordinators by email at
LCTG@toku.us or call John at 781-861-0402
. We look forward to have you join us!
Upcoming Meetings
Return to main LCTG page
Presenting to the group with Zoomnot ready for prime time: [using ppt impress etc to present|Tips for using MS Powerpoint and LibreOffice Impress in your presentation]
This schedule last modified 2024.04.03 12:14
LCTG Schedule
UPCOMING MEETINGS
Date | Topic | confirmed | Followups |
---|---|---|---|
Apr 3, 2024 | “The Science & Lore of Eclipses – Shadows in Space” a Road Scholar lecture chat messages | ||
Apr 10, 2024 | 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine - mRNA - Part 2 | yes | |
Apr 17, 2024 | Richard Feynman Lecture: "Los Alamos From Below" (1h18m) | ||
Apr 24, 2024 | GASP Planning session (Gigantic Allhands Scheduling and Planning) | yes | |
May 1, 2024 | Five Levels of Difficulty Day. Video Possibilities #3(dimensions), 4(lasers), 14(gravity), 35(time) | Harry | |
May 8, 2024 | (tentative) Arthritis. Always a pain, but worth discussing and learning more about.(Jerry Harris/Bedford) | JohnR | |
May 15, 2024 | Spacecraft Technology, the Design of the International Space Station, and Comparison of Technology in Spacecraft Over Time. Presented by Dr. Gary H Kitmacher from NASA Johnson Space Center. | yes | Jerry |
May 22, 2024 | Your favorite apps and websites. Follow-up on meeting 2/14 | ||
May 29, 2024 | (tentative date) Oppenheimer and the Institute for Advanced Study, presented by Dan Kleppner | ||
June 5, 2024 |
Past Meetings
2020
Date | Topic and links | |
---|---|---|
Jan 8, 2020 | Ig Nobel 2019 Awards awards for dubious inventions (Peter Albin) presentation link to Improbable Research page | |
Jan 15, 2020 | How we accomplished the change from Yahoo Groups and using the new system (30min, Steve Isenberg) Slides Watch the presentation Windows Security Settings and Windows 7 Anti-Malware (30min, Gary Patrick)Watch the presentation Slides Alternatives to TV servers: new ways of getting programming (30min, Steve Isenberg) Slides Watch the presentation . 2010 NY Times article . Spreadsheet shows service vs content | |
Jan 22, 2020 | Tesla-Marconi conflict their radio-related patent war from 1900-1943 (Bob Primak) Watch the presentation Presentation notes | |
Jan 29, 2020 | Potpourri Ken Cutter spoke on UFO's slideset and the history behind speed of light measurements slideset. John Rudy showed a video from Broad Institute (pronounced, bro-awd): Overall view of Broad Institute and the presentation we watched, human genome revolution past, present, and future. John Rudy mentioned that there are some MOOC classes on introduction to biology, see info at this edx link (MOOC=Massive Open Online Course) | |
Feb 5, 2020 | Career Day Attendees discuss interesting things from their career. (John Rudy) | [being rendered] |
Feb 12, 2020 | Space Update (George Gamota) | |
Feb 19, 2020 | Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad AI This is a later presentation, and therefore improved over an earlier presentation. the video (John Rudy will coordinate.) | |
Feb 26, 2020 | Patents – What they are, a brief history of patents, how to read them, and hot to obtain them (Dick Wagner, member)CONFIRMED | [being rendered] |
Mar 4, 2020 | Patent Licensing from Universities (Lita Nelson) | [video to be available] |
Mar 11, 2020 | Geodesy, its properties and tools, presented by Mike Pearlman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicsrogram on Geodesy Geodesy is the science of accurately measuring and understanding three fundamental properties of the Earth: its geometric shape, its orientation in space, and its gravity field— as well as the changes of these properties with time. Space Geodesy uses sources external to the Earth: artificial satellites (in satellite geodesy), quasars (in very-long-baseline interferometry, VLBI), and the retroreflectors on the Moon (in lunar laser ranging) to measure these static and time varying properties. Of current interest are measurements to monitor geodetic parameters and their temporal variations in a global reference frame with a target relative accuracy of 10E-9 – 10E-10, for both scientific understanding of the Earth system and understanding their potential impact on society Fundamental to these measurements is a reference frame that provides stability over space, time, and evolving technology. | [video to be available] |
Mar 18, 2020 | Tracking New Diseases: Medical issues incl Vaping (Jerry Slate, member) | [video to be available] |
Mar 25, 2020 | Patents for high technology (and when not to have them) (Dick Wagner, member) | [video to be available] |
2019
Date | Link to Video(s) | Slides/notes |
---|---|---|
Dec 25, 2019 | Christmas - no meeting Your homework is to celebrate the good things in life. | |
Dec 18, 2019 | Potpourri John Rudy continues AI in Medicine; Steve Isenberg on Cloud File Storage Options | |
Dec 11, 2019 | AI in Medicine MIT Alum Newsletter AI in Medical Care | |
Dec 4, 2019 | Tech trends and holiday gift ideas (Peter Albin and Bob Primak) Watch the presentation Slides | |
Nov 27, 2019 | Happy Thanksgiving! No meeting. | |
Nov 20, 2019 | Dark Web. “The legitimate uses of TOR, which is the software on which the so-called Dark Web runs. Or, if more interesting, a tour of the Dark Web“ https://darkwebtours.weebly.com/ Watch the presentation | |
Nov 13, 2019 | Steering committee | |
Nov 6, 2019 | Backup Strategies (Peter Albin) Watch the presentation | Slides |
Oct 30, 2019 | Space colonies in Solar Orbit The book describing our design study is available at: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph240/martelaro2/docs/nasa-sp-413.pdf Watch the Presentation | Charlie's handout |
Oct 23, 2019 | Tesla vs Edison (Bob Primak) Watch the presentation | Bob's paper |
Oct 16, 2019 | Potpourri: Flying Saucers – from material written by George Adamski; Deep Fakes video; Windows 10 tips (askwoody.com, you may need to become a member with voluntary paid membership; Backing up your device drivers; Getting those old games back into Win10, like FreeCell, Hearts, Solitaire, Chess, Minesweeper; discussion on when to and not to update to “the latest” Win10 release (consider: consult askwoody.com which today advises NOT to patch MS patches.) Gary's slides | |
Oct 9, 2019 | Yom Kippur, no meeting | |
Oct 2, 2019 | Science/Technology Rivalries: Newton vs. Liebnitz vs. Hooke (Charlie Holbrow) Watch the presentation (note: video is missing for part of the presentation) | handout |
Sept 25, 2019 | Application of physics techniques to biology. Gene Surfing and Survival of the Luckiest, David Nelson, Professor of Physics, Harvard (friend of Harry Forsdick). Population waves have played a crucial role in evolutionary history, as in the “out of Africa” hypothesis for human ancestry. Population geneticists and physicists are now developing methods for understanding how mutations, number fluctuations and selective advantages play out in such situations watch the presentation | |
Sept 18, 2019 | Cogito. A few weeks ago Mitch Wolfe sent out two very thought provoking links regarding the new science of voice technology, including what can be gathered by voice analysis using AI. We are fortunate to have Ali Azarbayejani, Cogito's CTO, visit and speak with us about the technology used by this local company which makes software that analyzes phone conversations and provides real-time guidance to help service employees better engage and connect with customers. Watch the presentation | |
Sept 11, 2019 | Jonathan Goode discusses many interesting (and amazing) computer details including fonts Bob Primak on the Laser Scanning of St Pauls Cathedral and an update on the cleanup of Notre Dame Cathedral | Notes on Bob's talk High lead levels found in Notre Dame WSJ Article, Reconstruction work is on hold due to lead |
Sept 4, 2019 | AI for People in a Hurry (short) and Setting Rules for the AI Race, plus a pre and post view discussion. Meeting led by Larry Wittig. | |
Aug 28, 2019 | Dava Sobel’s Google talk on “The Glass Universe”, women in Science (a Google Talk video) JohnR will introduce the subject and speaker, we'll watch the video, and discuss it and related topics afterwards see also Constructing the Glass Universe by Dava Sobel. Additional info on and about this topic, by Gary Patrick–includes comments on the video and more. | |
Aug 21, 2019 | “UNIX, Linux - Origins, History, Ongoing Futures”, a talk presented by Charly Sestokas (note, talk will not be recorded) plus a 30-minute video about SpaceX, presented by George Gamota | |
Aug 14, 2019 | Potpourri. Eli Brookner finishes his talk on Radar and Einstein CharlyS on Storage (not recorded). How to use LexMedia to view videos on demand | |
Aug 7, 2019 | Eli Brookner "Snoopy on Radar & Phased Arrays & Einstein's Duality Theory – An Update." part 1 (90 min) | |
July 31, 2019 | Eight Days to the Moon and Back - focus on Apollo 11 [George Gamota] | |
July 24, 2019 | Breaking the WWII Enigma Machine (Material from the April 2019 Lexington Veteran’s meeting, search LexMedia On Demand for “Enigma”) [Rudy] | |
July 17, 2019 | Potpourri including Steve Isenberg on virtual credit cards, space elevators, and more (planningpage) recording of presentation | |
July 10, 2019 | Apple Computer, History and Devices, by Josh Turiel see the presentation | |
July 3, 2019 | No Meeting due to Holiday | |
June 26, 2019 | Update on 5G (Bob Primak) see the presentation | |
June 19, 2019 | Black Hole 60-minute video (Gamota) plus | |
June 12, 2019 | From talks at Google Frank Abagnale: "Catch Me If You Can" and A new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (Jennifer Wilcox) | |
June 5, 2019 | 3D Reconstruction. Used for churches and other buildings. (Bob Primak) | |
May 29, 2019 | Potpourri including Y2K. What was it, why did it happen, was it real? (John Rudy) and Gary Patrick on Windows Issues | |
May 22, 2019 | Potpourri. Showed several movies. Vaccines calling shots The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum Beverage Can The strange tale of the Norden bombsight | |
May 15, 2019 | Career stories. Come prepared to tell us about your technical experiences. (We have done this 2-3 times before; but not recently). | https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-vaccinescalling-shots/ |
May 8, 2019 | Ray Kurzweil + Disruptive Technologies and Dangerous Ideas Singularity University co-founder, Google AI Director and noted futurist Ray Kurzweil joined Peter H. Diamandis for a 90-minute Ask Me Anything, all aimed at providing you an unfair advantage for your business. | https://youtu.be/SaOfLtoaKqw |
May 1, 2019 | Potpourri and Steering Committee | |
April 24, 2019 | Documentary on Neil Armstrong | Gamota |
April 17, 2019 | History of the World in 100 Objects (continued). We listened to The mechanical galleon, Mexican codex map, Ship's chronometer from HMS Beagle, and Solar powered lamp and charger | British Museum site BBC site |
April 10, 2019 | Madame Curie video about Madame Curie and the Curie family, presented by Charlie Holbrow. Madame Curie and the Curie family will focus on her and her daughter and their characters and discoveries and how they fit into the sequence of dramatic developments in physics between the discovery of radioactivity in 1897 and the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938. This will include some description of Lise Meitner's role in these developments and a brief mention of why she didn't get a Nobel for the discovery of nuclear fission. | handout that wasn't handed out How the Curies' piezo device worked and measured small electric current |
April 3, 2019 | Showing the 2014 AI movie Ex Machina: A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic (artificial) intelligence (AI) by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid. Very intriguing movie. | FYI, the movie is available on NetFlix. |
March 27, 2019 | Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) interview with Frank Heart (who in 1969 led the team of BBN engineers that created the ARPANET). slightly shortened version | slides |
March 20, 2019 | George Gamota shows video "Journey through the Milky Way" And relating to the end of the program, info on Detecting Dark Matter New: Milky Way Bulge | |
March 13, 2019 | Password Managers Slides (with links) for the presentation Will your password stand up to a cracker? Is your password or account info out on the web? Newsletter 4/15/2019 discussing password managers | Related info About Keeper Password Manager Keeper website screenshots |
March 6, 2019 | History of the World in 100 items. Presenting a representative sample of the 100-part series of 15 podcasts by Neil MacGregor during his time as Director of the British Museum that explores world history from 2 million years ago to the present. We listened to The Flood Tablet, Hebrew Astrolabe, and Ming Bank Note. | British Museum site BBC site |
February 27, 2019 | George Gamota presents "2018 Space Events/Discoveries" plus 10 minute update on "Trump's Science Appointees" | Space Update slides Trump Science Appointees slides |
February 20, 2019 | Charlie presents the first of 3 talks on quantum physics, today's subject is "why wave-particle duality makes such a disturbing theory necessary" | Powerpoint slides Wave Particle outline -- Why we need quantum mechanics |
February 13, 2019 | Windows System Maintenance and Updating (Bob Primak) part 1 | PDF of Bob's slides |
February 6, 2019 | The Power Grid (presented by Jackie Zajac) | PDF of Jackie's slides |
January 30, 2019 | 2019 lg Nobel awards ceremony (presenter Peter Albin) Awards Ceremony Improbable Research home | “Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK” |
January 23, 2019 | Shown: TED Talk String theory - Brian Greene The greatest dance sequence ever The best stats you've ever seen The tyranny of the rocket equation Not shown but of possible interest TED Talk Why is our universe fine-tuned for life? - Brian Greene 10 Fascinating Examples of Unintended Consequences | |
January 16, 2019 | Mathematics of Weight Loss 10 Times Michio Kaku Arguments Blew Our Minds TED Talk The freakonomics of McDonalds vs Drugs by Steve Levitt | |
January 9, 2019 | Michael Rosenblatt, MD on "Ways That Wartime Injuries Have Influenced Civilian Medical Practice" | link to slides on Yahoo |
2018
December 19, 2018 | Yumio Saneyoshi on "The State of Computer Programming Education for Youth" | |
December 12, 2018 | Dr. Reinier Beeuwkes on "Fusion at MIT" | |
December 5, 2018 | Endocrine system (no video) | Stress, Portrait of a Killer slides are on the group Yahoo page |
November 28, 2018 | Gary Patrick on "Current Windows Security Software" | PDF of Gary's slides |
November 7, 2018 | Kathryn Flanagan on "The James Webb Space Telescope" | |
October 31, 2018 | Harry Forsdick on "The Economics of Bitcoin" | Slides |
October 17, 2018 | Steve Isenberg on "Blockchain Technology" | PowerPoint Slides |
October 10, 2018 | Larry Wittig on "Encryption" | PDF of Larry's slides |
October 3, 2018 | Bruce Cohen on "The Science of Psychiatric Disorders and Their Treatment" | |
August 1, 2018 | Isabel Greenstein and Charles Wang on "What Is Social Media?" | |
July 18, 2018 | George Gamota on "Is China the New Science Superpower?" | info on current changes in China: https://youtu.be/SLmLPcUMci0 in BBC News |
July 11, 2018 | Alan Levine on "Exoplanets" part 1 |
Links to Interesting Stuff
- Artificially mimicking people's voices and selfies. Fortune magazine has been publishing recent articles about “deepfakes” and combating them. Artificial intelligence algorithms put convincing speech into video and audio clips. For example, “revenge porn” has been constructed by pasting women's heads onto porn actress bodies. There is also potential for fraud by impostors. See: https://fortune.com/2019/07/24/fighting-deepfakes-gets-real/ and https://fortune.com/tag/deepfakes/
Software Maybe of Interest
Neither the Lexington Computer and Technology Group nor the author of this Wiki page guarantee the application(s) listed here. While we have investigated and tried them ourselves, they come with no guarantee.
Work in progress
Quantum Computing
Space Elevator
Flatland
TV alternatives
Leaving TV Services like Comcast, and taking advantage of new ways, including using computers, to get programing instead. (Steve Isenberg to present/lead discussion)
Potential Topics and Speakers
CharlyS | 30 min | Computer buying tips, etc; HD vs SSD; SD Longetivity; MS Surface |
David Kahan | nuclear sub lost at sea | |
10 min | How Deepfakes Work (viewed, edited) | |
25 min | Deep Fakes and the Technology Behind it (BBC) (not-previewed) |
Other items and discussions
New Email List
New Web Page
LCTG Management Team
LCTG announcement sending process
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